Steel's Rank-and-file Line Up Against Givebacks

April 15, 1986|by DAN HARTZELL, The Morning Call

Bethlehem Steel Corp. rank-and-file workers are circulating petitions urging union contract negotiators not to accept company demands for wage and benefit concessions, a United Steelworkers official confirmed yesterday.

"I didn't see the petition," USW Local 2600 President Pete DePietro said yesterday afternoon, while acknowledging that one is being circulated.

"But I think it's great," DePietro said of the document, which didn't formally originate with the union but apparently from the hourly steelworkers on their own.

"They're telling us, as union officials, not to accept concessions. Once they bring it over to us, we'll look it over, and if that's the wish of the membership, that's what we'll have to do," DePietro said.

Asked if that meant specifically that the petition would affect the ongoing negotiations between the USW and the nation's third-largest steel producer, DePietro said, "I don't think it will.

"I think they're just (angry) . . .," he said of the rank-and-file, about developments which have surrounded the negotiations.

The current three-year collective bargaining agreement covering about 30,000 Bethlehem Steel Corp. employees expires July 31. Negotiations in Pittsburgh broke off early this month, with both sides saying they wanted to return home to examine mutual concerns and problems at the plant level.

DePietro and company officials said yesterday a resumption of talks has not yet been scheduled, but the local president said, "We think (they could resume) around the first of May or so."

Just prior to the breakup of negotiations April 5, the company released a federally mandated proxy statement revealing that board Chairman Donald Trautlein received an 11-percent pay raise, to $542,060, last year. Also detailed were "golden parachute" employment contracts guaranteeing nine top officers three years worth of full-salary pay, along with other benefits, if they lose their jobs or leave voluntarily because of a takeover of the company.

While DePietro had not seen the petition as of yesterday afternoon, a source who declined to be identified obtained a copy, and said that it stated:

"We, the members of the tri-local union, want it made known to the tri- local negotiating team that, in the light of the recent bonuses and exorbitant pay raises to Don Trautlein, (company President) Walter Williams, and other executive officers of the Bethlehem Steel Corp., we believe that the new contract should not contain any less than we have under the current contract."